Ideas are like finches. When there is not enough food for all finches in a given population to survive, natural selection will favor those most adapted to the situation at hand. From a range of options presented by genetic diversity, pressure placed on a group of finches will lead to the survival of the finches in possession of the right beak. Diversity and pressure will, in the absence of any conscious agent, find the ‘right’ answer to the beak problem. The same idea that works on birds works on companies, technologies and ideas. There are today very few dodos, Blockbuster franchises, phonographs or teleologists.
If you accept that college is a place to learn to think—and that thinking is something you do to get the right answer to a question—then this is an exciting prospect. The same system that produced the eyes you’re using can tell you what sort of tax policy is most just, or how to save the environment or what to do about ISIS. Pressure on an idea is what we are trained for here at college: it is the critical mindset, the demand that an idea must prove itself and not be accepted straight out of the gate.
Intellectual diversity is vigorous on a global scale but not a local one. A survey conducted last spring by Associate Professor of Government Michael Franz’s Quantitative Analysis in Political Science class quantitatively confirmed what is probably obvious: Bowdoin skews heavily liberal. There are more surprising findings, too. First, we rate the typical student more liberal than they really are. Second, those who are more conservative are more likely to feel uncomfortable sharing their political views. This boils down to a demonstrable lack of full and effective intellectual diversity. This is a big problem. Our system only works when we have a diversity of opinions that pressure us to act. Without choices, we can only hope that the idea we’re left with really is the best one.
The idea I’m arguing for is often called the ‘Marketplace of Ideas.’ It’s not new. It was put forward by John Stuart Mill in his book, “On Liberty.” He writes, “First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.”
The competition is the whole point; just like a boxer, an idea can only become so strong on its own. To realize its full potential, an idea has to enter the ring and fight. We owe it to the ideas we hold most dear to make them fight, to expose them to criticism and contestation so they can become their best. It can be tempting to shirk this responsibility; it can be very comfortable inside an echo chamber. But there is a school somewhere that has an opposite ideological skew than Bowdoin, and both schools empty into the same World Outside. If we want our ideas to put their feet on the ground and create positive change in the world, they will need to compete with everyone else’s, and they will need to be strong.
All this is to say: if we are not made uncomfortable—if we are not angry or offended—we are doing ourselves a disservice. What if Rick Perry wanted to speak on campus? Marine Le Pen? Donald Trump? I disagree vehemently with all of them, and I’m sure I’m not alone. That is precisely why we should welcome them: so we can prove them wrong. The idea is not just to say they’re wrong, but to prove it, and to demonstrate that our ideas are better.
Don’t forget; people have been sure in the past. They have been sure that women shouldn’t vote, that gay people shouldn’t get married, that the sun went around the Earth, that purple jolly ranchers would be a good idea. They were sure, and they silenced anyone who disagreed. People who thought otherwise were disruptive, blasphemous or offensive. It’s time we learned that this way of finding the truth doesn’t work.
To compel an opinion to silence is to pick one competitor in the game and remove it from competition. It’s cheating; it’s breaking the rules of the game and it will screw up the outcome. When we lack intellectual competition, it’s bad for the ideas in which we believe. It’s as if you had a dozen finches with differently shaped beaks on an island and you picked six to drown. Are you sure the ones you picked were wrong? How sure? How did you decide? Every idea that is dismissed without due process is a drowned finch. “We don’t say that at Bowdoin?” Drowned finch. “I don’t want her to come here, I disagree with her?” Drowned finch. “If you don’t think so, you must be stupid/overly sensitive/bigoted?” Drowned finch. Please Bowdoin. Do not drown finches.
James Boucher is a member of the Class of 2019.